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I’m in. Flash me.
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Jan 9, 2020 11:28
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Help Me Be Captain 1493 words “Barkeep,” I entreat. “My cup runs dry.” Geoffrey doesn’t look up. He stares at the rupture in the earthen shelving, and raises a foreleg. “In but a minute, Winston. I must complete these repairs.” “Of course,” I say. The Nest comes first. Especially when repairing our honeydew storage. Geoffrey grabs the wall with his bristled appendages and heaves himself up. Percy, honeydrunk in the corner, emits a scornful laugh. “You find that difficult, barman?” he says. “Might I suggest a mite of restraint in future?” We are, of course, all aware of Geoffrey’s penchant for imbibing his stock in the back room. That, and his willingness to trade good dew for extra rations once a gathering party returns, has made him the portliest termite in the nest. However, I will not stand for such pointless discourtesy from my officers. “Silence, Captain,” I say. “Let him attend to his duty, or you’ll be on trench duty for a moon.” Percy shudders and returns to his drink. The trench run isn’t all that awful, in truth. I myself was made to do it several times for impudence and insubordination in my non-commissioned days. Our pellets are smooth, dry, and odourless, and the drudgery of disposing of them can become somewhat meditative after a while. Percy, though, would be thoroughly humiliated if the enlisted soldiers were to see him rolling their collected faeces down the disposal trench. This particular nest-climber could not possibly be seen getting his hands dirty. Geoffrey drags himself onto the ceiling and glances downwards at the fissure spoiling his shelving. He opens his mouth and drools, slowly waterfalling sticky adhesive into the cracks. “Excellent aim, Geoff,” I say. He swivels and grins at me, then drops to the floor. He takes some earth from beneath the bar and massages it into the shelving, taking his time to get a pleasingly level surface. “Thank you, Colonel.” He takes my cup and fills it with sparkling honeydew. I take it and drink deeply. Savour the saccharine. As I drink, I catch wind of the scent. Alert. Percy turns to me. “Alarm?” “No. Not the war scent,” I say, craning to inspect the odour. “Not the rebuilding call either. I don’t recognize it. On my heels, Captain!” He nods and we run from the honeybar, skittering through the tunnels towards the scent. As we pass nervous drones, I see the fear in Percy’s eyes. His limited battle experience has been confined to observation posts and giving orders. I yearn for his confident, faithful father. We reach the Great Antechamber. The Queen’s quarters are encircled by the Royal Guard, standing to attention and discharging those unusual pheromones. In the center of the room kneel a few dozen unusual-looking termites. Jet black, shiny, with bulb-shaped heads and… No mandibles? I wonder. I sidle past the sickly, dozing General Bartholomew, and make my way to Colonel Archibald, my trusted counterpart and the head of the Sappers regiment. “What has happened?” I whisper to him. “Refugees. A contingent from the Colossal Temple. The flesh giants ravaged their nest with foul poison; few escaped.” I cannot contain my shock. “The Temple Nest is destroyed?” I shout. One of the strange Temple mites lifts his bulbous head and nods gravely. “Yes,” he says, “gone to naught. Half a moon ago. The giants broke through the walls as if they were nothing, and filled the Nest with a vile blight. We have been travelling ever since, by night, fending off ants and strange, furry monsters we had never yet seen. There were a thousand of us when the voyage began, and we are all that remains.” The crowd erupts into panicked chittering. Our kind has maintained a presence in the Colossal Temple since time immemorial, close to the flesh giants but safely hidden between walls of stone. He continues, “Will you give us shelter?” “They have lost their mandibles! They must carry disease! The scourge!” Unmistakably Percy’s voice. The Temple mite looks worried, and continues, “We have memorized the location of many emergency caches. We will share a great bounty with you. Please...” he gestures towards a young female in his party. I understand: an adolescent Queen. “Yes,” I say, firm. “We will shelter you. By the Great Nest, I pledge our protection to you.” I look to the Commander of the Royal Guard. “Take them to the Queen.” *** The ants come in the night. I am woken by panicked screams and the war scent, flooding my nose from every angle. I race to my workbench and grab a whetstone, then rush from my chamber and collide with Percy. “Colonel! I was coming to find you!” he sputters. I imagine he was aiming to find a corner to hide in, but I hold my tongue. “It is war, Captain?” “Yes, ants! They followed the temple mites!” That sounds about right. Sneaky, evil creatures. I tamper my disgust and point in the direction Percy had been running from. “To battle, then. With me.” I say. He looks pained but follows. We run, following the signals and dodging boulders of loose earth kicked up by battle. As we trail the scent, I sharpen my mandibles with the whetstone. No time for a clean edge. I will have to be content with serration, and the wounds it can cause. I throw the whetstone to Percy wordlessly, and the fool fumbles it into the dirt. We arrive at the battlefield; the soldiers have done well to funnel the ants into one of our large battle domes. We are, luckily, far from the Queen’s chambers. As I begin to survey the carnage, I am shaken to my core by a sudden realisation. “What are these?” I fail to keep an edge of fear from my voice. “I - I do not know, sir. I have never seen them either.” The ants are like none in the annals; they are crimson and larger than any I have seen. Their erratic, swarming movements send chills down my spine and disgust through my brain. Our soldiers are fighting valiantly, but these huge beasts are spitting corrosive venom and splitting them in two. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a squadron of ants at the foot of the cliff we are standing on. Their commander is pointing up at us with a jagged foreleg. “⌽⍝⍉! ⍦⍧!” emits the ant leader. His squadron begin to climb the cliff. “All is lost, sir!” Percy ventures, “Let us retreat!” “Nay, Captain! Have you lost your mind? We must defend our Queen and the Temple Queen!” Percy looks at me with transparent disgust. “I’ll not die for a breeding sow, be it ours or a foreigner.” He points his mandibles at me. “Stand aside, Colonel. I’m making a tactical decision here.” “You would desecrate the teachings of the Great Nest, coward? Your father looks down on you in disgust, at this very moment.” “My father was a wastrel. The less of him I impress, the better.” Percy feints towards me. “I’ll not repeat myself, Colonel.” Have it your way, I think. “gently caress you, wretch,” I spit. I slide under his mandibles and aim carefully, then slash at his autothysis gland and kick him towards the opening of the tunnel. Before Percy can react, he explodes into a sticky mass, covering the opening and blocking it. I dive from the cliff and at the squadron leader. My mandibles impale him. The serration keeps me stuck, luckily, and we fall to the battlefield. His squadron erupt into panic and run in random, erratic directions. The battle is against us. We are beginning to lose, overrun by endless waves of ants, when I see the Temple mite leader approach me. “Herd them. Get them in one place.” He runs back to his squad without explanation. We are out of both time and strategy at this point, so I pass the order on, trusting his judgment. We continue to fight, losing limbs and friends to formic acid, but manage to corral the plague of ants into the center of the chamber. Suddenly, the dirt around me is thrown by a chaotic barrage of artillery. I look to the ceiling and see the Temple mites, clinging there, shooting missiles of glue in controlled waves from their bulbous heads. So THAT’s why they don’t need mandibles, I realise. Their artillery is terrifying - the glue sticks the ants to the earth, helpless. Then, they continue to shoot at the immobile ant heads and split them in two. In a matter of minutes, the battle is over. A stinking, acidic mass of dead ants is piled in the centre of the chamber, and no-one dares say a word. “They have saved us!” one soldier shouts. “Long live the Temple! Long live the Great Nest!” The room erupts into cheers and chants, celebrating our terrifying new allies. The Temple leader looks at me and nods. I nod back. Long live the Nest.
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Jan 12, 2020 19:50
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Communist Bear - The Shepherd Not bad, nice language, reminds me of the Dark Tower. Mainly I was left confused - good writing but I have no real sense of what’s going on, and not in an interesting or mysterious sense. 3/5 Crimea - Cuckoo Well written; and an interesting premise - from what I can figure out, we’re in a sentient machine future and a virus containing human memories gets transmitted in and spread around? It’s cool stuff, though I must say choosing to spend part of your allotment on repeating the same sentences in Icelandic and then English strikes me as a waste of words. Some great single sentences (‘hello little darling, you’re a new shape in my brain’ and ‘my siblings sing with your voice’ are two that stuck out to me particularly). 4/5 Simply Simon - Melodies of Life Organ cathedral itself is a great and creepy setting, and I love the use of diapason, tickles the muso in me. Some excellent turns of phrase, in particular ‘methuselaic circuitry’. Part of me likes this one, but I wish you’d spent more time on the creepy chamber full of sacrificed robot brains worshipping a harlequin monster, and less time on Detective loving Robocop blundering around hallways. I also particularly don’t like the use of all the calculations and percentages and units - I realise it’s a conscious choice, to reflect the android protagonist’s thought processes, but it just annoys me. I’m overall disappointed - great ideas not borne out into a great execution. 2/5. Uranium Phoenix - The Endless Falling Ashes of Dead Stars Love, reconciliation, and fish in an oppressive and grandiose space opera world! I’m into it. It works for me. I like the central relationship and the literal reunion at the end, and them becoming as one and recovering the old name is cool and good. My issues are: you talk about fractals and fractal symmetry way too much. Also, it’s overwrought, which makes sense and fits within space opera but is perhaps a little OTT. As you had words to spare, I would have been interested in more exploration of the Ravenous/forbearers. 4/5 A friendly penguin - life from the void Nice writing but boring and meandering, doesn’t really say anything to me or go anywhere. Robot becomes interested in things outside its programming, goes rogue. Lots of capitalized nouns, not a lot of development. 2/5 Doctor Eckhart - Hopelessly Human I like the setting and flavor of this one a lot; I like the protagonist android and they feel well fleshed out (given the limited word count). The android experiencing rejection from bad humans followed by acceptance from a good human is a little trite, but it works for me anyway. The kitten that can’t make a normal cat noise is a cute touch, too. What stops this from getting beyond the middle of the pack is that despite using the full 1500 words, there’s no real ending or payoff. It just ends suddenly. Also, “Yeah, I'm grateful for Rajinikanth for ruling to end android slavery” is very clumsy exposition. That clanged HARD for me. 3/5 QuoProQuid - Wasteland Pastoral Oof! This is good. Well written, lays out an imaginative world in only a few bits of exposition, and I enjoy the character interactions. I like the idea of a personalized scribbler unit in particular, and having our protagonist be one is some good poo poo. Also, that is a gut punch ending! I’m into it! I want more! 5/5 Antivehicular - The Ill-Made Robot This is short and sweet. I feel for this dumb robot, and I want him to be happy. It’s always nice to have a TD entry that ends with a proper conclusion and a happy ending. Something about this almost feels like a good children’s story, and I mean that as a compliment. 4/5 Applewhite - The Bower Man This is bad. I’m glad someone went for something other than sci-fi, but this is a really boring ghost story. Also, the presentation of the socialite wife as being so uninterested in anything but materialism that she’s unwilling to save her own life is dumb and kinda sexist. I realise that might be because this is a pulpy spook-'em-up, and the narrator is only passing on what they’ve heard, but it still turns me off big time. 1/5 Thranguy - The Last Laugh This is pretty good. I like that the robots are forced to consult a stand up comedian for their ethical dilemmas. I feel like this one should do more for me, but I think what I find odd is that the tone starts out narrated with character and voice, then suddenly turns flat and workmanlike for the rest of it. It’s a solid entry, though, and a good ending. 3/5 SurreptitiousMuffin - Mass So this has some excellent writing, but it strikes me as more of a short vignette than fiction I can grab hold of. Your way with words here is beautiful, but overall that leaves me cold when I don’t know what in the gently caress is going on. 3/5 Seb - First Date I just simply don't get the ending of this one. I was mostly enjoying it right up until the end, but that threw me for a real loop. It’s fine, I guess? 3/5 Carl Killer Miller - Dreamt The End This is excellent. You use your words so economically yet so well, and your story creeped the hell out of me. I really enjoy your use of language in this, especially when describing the confusion a robot feels when placed into a decrepit human form. The ending also really piqued my interest - I certainly wasn’t expecting the bot to have gleaned such satisfaction from its ordeal, but I like it as a twist! This could easily have been a winner for me. 5/5 Pththya-lyi - Robot Girl This is a good one; it’s engaging and I found it a nice mix of creepy and somewhat poignant. The repeating motif of how many hours it’s been grates on me a bit, but I like the interactions between the different robots (though the security robot’s last directive made me roll my eyes). 4/5 Chairchucker - I, Nazi Death Robot This is so bad, but loving hilarious. I was smiling all the way through. I want to create an HDM - an Honorable Dishonorable Mention - just for this entry. 2/5
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Feb 18, 2020 11:54
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In and flash.
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Mar 30, 2020 09:43
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Time Jazz 1455 words Jailbreaker; Item: PhoTonic Flask The time loop doesn’t surprise you, but the resurrections do. “Causality Maintenance Oversights,” as Building Management calls them, are a normal thorn in the side for you. Some days you get up to go to work, poo poo, shower, shave, and then you leave the front door and wake up in bed again — face still smooth, hair still wet, bowels still voided. As physical states persist (and these incidents usually affect a good portion of the Tower all at once) it’s a good excuse to take the day off, measure the loop, and then slip on some goggles and catch up on some VOIDTV episodes of appropriate length. So when causality goes to poo poo that afternoon, it doesn’t faze you. At first. You have the day off, so you’re about to begin an appointment with Fast-Acting Liquor™ when the lights in your apartment wink out. A minute later, the blast shields slam down, plunging your unit into the inky black. “Huh,” you mumble, trying the lamps. No success. You stumble around the dark apartment and find that your electrics are cut off, which then leads your thoughts down a semantic tangent. Is electricity the right word? No wires, to be fair. Maybe just “energy.” Before you can finish being pedantic, you realize you’re on your sofa and the lights are back. gently caress. Loop. Ok, drink and VOIDTV. At least Management will give us a gift card. You proceed with that plan. It goes great: you pour yourself a hand’s worth of fingers and measure the loop while savouring the sweet citrine substance. After ten seconds, the lights go out again. One minute, and the shutters come down. After five minutes in total, you’re transported from your kitchen back to the sofa. Five minutes is a good length; you shudder as you remember the time your quadrant was caught in a five-second loop for an entire day. So it seems all is well, until you look at your table and a chill goes through you. Your Liquor™ bottle is now transparent and fuzzy, and your hand passes right through it! You’ve heard of this before, items slipping through the cracks. Unexpected. Uncharacteristic. Unacceptable. The panic sets in when you get to your feet and realize you feel exactly as inebriated as you did five minutes ago (i.e., not enough). Matter states not carrying over? This loop isn’t normal, you think. I need to get out of here. You run, open the door, and find disappointment: the optional safety shutters are down. You curse yourself for agreeing to have them installed in return for a VoidGym pass you never use and beat your fists helplessly against the cold iron until the end of the loop. Your first death comes immediately after. This time, as soon as you come to, you run to the front door and make it out into the hall before the shutters close. Unfortunately, the hallway is filled with residents dressed in VoidMart uniforms holding laser axes. The ringleader (in Assistant Manager duds) fixes you with a blank gaze. “Employees out of uniform are contravening the Employee Handbook,” he announces in monotone, then swings the axe and decapitates you. As your head rolls into the stairwell and darkness consumes you, you hear him say, “Have a good day.” And you’re back on the sofa again. A nightmare, you tell yourself. Just a nightmare. Shock, disorientation, and a little wishful thinking all agree. So you run back out to the hallway and get murdered by the Voidstricken again. This time he staves your chest in with the axe. As it turns out, that’s a far more painful way to die. The next time, you grab a kitchen knife before you run out. It goes badly. You give up on the hallway. Insult adds itself to injury when you attempt to make some comfort food in the dark, slip on a badly-placed stack of magazines, hit your head on the counter, and die. Traumatic brain injury. Your last thoughts are: Well, this loving sucks. You resurrect once more and dig through your backpack. You find what you need: the PhoTonic Flask. The VoidMart salesman who shilled this thing to you promised it was unaffected by quantum entanglement, eldritch forces, or warranty clawbacks. Time to see if any of that was true. You flick the Flask to capture mode, then spend the rest of that loop lighting matches and holding them near the tiny nebula on the side. When you reset, you grab the Flask again and break one of the seals on the top. Despite the loop, it emits a warm but weak light and you punch the air. You make a sandwich. It tastes of victory. However, the effect is short lived, as you’ve forgotten the particulars of this loop: When the timeline restarts, you’re hungry again. “This is no way to live!” you scream, and you rush to the window in a blind rage. Before you can throw yourself through it, you notice the sky outside and a realization hits you like a VoidTrak freight train: It’s getting dark outside. Which means the loop isn’t happening out there. A budding plan blooms, though time is short. If it’s getting dark outside, that’s great for causality, but you can’t triangulate a landing if you can’t see it. Crunch time might take on a different meaning. Now or never, you decide. But first things first: you need some real light. When the loop restarts, you rush to your kitchen cupboards and dig through. As the shutters come down, you break another seal on the Flask, illuminating the subway tile backsplash with the weak amber light. “Come on, come on,” you mutter, searching in desperation. Then you hit upon it, a small bag with cans of Ultra-Efficient BBQFLUID you’d bought many summers ago, when a craze for outdoor grilling in the open-air mezzanine had swept the Tower. You waste no time soaking as much of your surroundings as possible in the enriched butane, then hold your breath, flick the Flask into capture mode, and light a match. Well. The less said about burning to death, the better. Back to the plan. You grab the Flask as the lights go out, then break the final seal and throw it into the center of your apartment. The light captured from the previous loop’s kitchen inferno fills every inch of the apartment, dazzling you but illuminating everything. Fifty seconds left. You dig through your toolbox and find a mallet. Forty seconds left. You sprint to your bedroom and grab as many blankets as you can carry, piling them into your grip. Thirty seconds left. You dump the tools by the windows and gather your communicator, wallet, and liquor store discount card. Twenty. You smash the window pane with a flurry of blows from the mallet, creating a large hole surrounded by jagged shards. Hands clad in blankets, you work to punch out as much space as possible and clear the glass. Ten. You think you can make it through now. You look down at the community pool, ten stories down, and breathe. Five. “gently caress it.” You dive through the hole and feel a shard lacerate your calf, but you’ve made it! You soar through the air and hear the shutters slam closed behind you. But triumph is soon replaced by vertigo and fear, and you scream as the Tower passes you by at a speed you’ve never imagined. Your recent experiences with death haven’t prepared you for this, and you pray to every deity imaginable. You splash into the pool in a glorious cannonball, spraying the surroundings with water. You surface, spluttering and laughing in disbelief, then clamber to the poolside and lie there savouring your breath. You check your watch with a pang of fear, but it’s been ten minutes: you’ve escaped the loop. You’re crying with joy at this point, so you don’t immediately notice the group of armed residents coming up to you. “You okay there, pal?” says a woman with a very large gun. “Never better,” you grin. “Great; then you’re coming with us. They’ll kill you if they find you here, and we need as many people as possible to reach the top of the Tower. It’s time to take our home back from those bastard Voidstricken!” she says as the residents around her erupt into cheers. “The top of the Tower,” you say weakly, “so...we’re taking the elevator, right?” She laughs and hands you a pistol. “Sorry, they’ve locked ‘em down. Stairs only, friend. Now come on!” You look up to the roof. Eighty flights of stairs (at least). If only you’d used the VoidGym membership. Oh. I should have stayed dead.
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Apr 6, 2020 01:05
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